02/05/2011

Although Goodell ably protects the league's image, it's a Kenyan native educated in the United Kingdom who once hawked tobacco and alcohol products that has helped lift the NFL to new heights. Mark Waller, who joined the NFL in 2006 originally to promote the game abroad and is now the league's first chief marketing officer, sees football as "America's last great campfire."

"Imagine you were above the United States on a Sunday, you'd see these incredible glows of stadiums," Waller said.

02/04/2011

There are plenty of successful lawyers and MBAs in Hollywood, but the raw spirit of can-do invention and inspiration will take people farther than the ability to read a complex profit and loss statement. Years ago, David Geffen, who dropped out of night school at Brooklyn College before eventually landing a job in the William Morris mailroom, once told me that his early success was rooted in the ability to develop relationships. “It's not about where you went to college or how good-looking you are or whether you could play football--it's about whether you can create a relationship.”

02/01/2011

In A Bathing Ape's heyday, lines would snake around the shop in Harajuku with scores of young men eager to buy one of its T-shirts, which were made in limited batches. But in recent years, the balance sheet of the Nowhere Group, the operator of A Bathing Ape, has suffered. For the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2010, its net loss was 119 million yen, slightly better than a loss of 267.4 million yen the previous year. The company had liabilities totaling 1.03 billion yen in the year ended August 31. I.T will also guarantee the company's outstanding loans of 2.6 billion yen.